Total Recall

Len Wiseman remakes Paul Verhoeven's 1990 sci-fi classic, which was itself adapted from the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." A blue-collar worker in the year 2084 (Collin Farrell) engages the company Rekall to create synthetic memories for him, but the memories turn out to be real and he learns that he's part of a massive government conspiracy. Verhoeven used the Dick story as a vehicle for social satire and Baudrillardian meditations on the cinematic image; the new version, with its humorless dialogue and Farrell's smoldering performance, suffers from a self-seriousness that undercuts any genre pleasures. But the action is thrilling and the futuristic setting superbly realized, thanks to a proper mix of green-screen sequences and physical sets.
ByDrew Hunt